


Memories of a Mountain

by riverdaze



Series: UshiTen Week [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!, Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spirits, Alternate universe for haikyuu, Case Fic, Emotional Hurt, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, M/M, Mind the Tags, Normal day in the life of Natsume, Oblivious Ushijima Wakatoshi, Tendou is a poet, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Time Shenanigans, Who asked for this?, Youkai, but not in the way you think, good for him, no natsume knowledge necessary, this is so specific, though shenanigans is a bit lighthearted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:55:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26112235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverdaze/pseuds/riverdaze
Summary: Natsume meets Wakatoshi, a youkai who has journeyed down from the mountains looking for a tardy friend.
Relationships: Tendou Satori/Ushijima Wakatoshi
Series: UshiTen Week [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1895962
Comments: 16
Kudos: 52
Collections: Ushiten Week 2020





	Memories of a Mountain

**Author's Note:**

> UshiTen Week Day 2- Getting Back Together / Phobias / **Crossover AU**  
> ... Really tempted to include getting back together, but... well.

Orange leaves crunch under Natsume’s feet as he treks back to the Fujiwara house, snuggly warm in the new coat Touko-san bought him. Sometimes, Natsume thinks he’s lived with the Fujiwara’s long enough to understand their open-hearted kindness, but then they’ll do something like this--buy him a brand new coat just because one of them saw it and thought he’d look good in it, even though his hand-me-down from a previous family still fits--and it'll take him off guard all over again.

Nyanko-sensei is jumping around alongside Natsume, pouncing on the twirling leaves like the cat his form suggests he is. 

“What are you smiling about, brat?” Nyanko asks when he catches Natsume looking on. A leaf perches on the fur between his ears.

“Nothing,” Natsume says, feeling warm in an entirely different way than the kind the new coat physically provides. Nyanko humphs, and then stops walking. 

“Looks like you have another visitor. Let’s ignore him. You’ve given back too many names.” Nyanko hits a paw against the street with every syllable. 

All the warmth drains from Natsume into an ominous chill. The Fujiwara house is in front of him, and sitting next to it is a giant. One of its hands is resting on the roof, and he’s staring impassively at the window leading into Natsume’s room.

It’s always a toss-up with youkai when it comes down to which ones mean harm and which don’t. Even the kindly ones can do accidental injury out of their misunderstanding of humans, so the giant hand poised to crush Natsume’s guardian’s home makes him immediately uneasy. Still, Natsume takes a deep breath and walks over to stand by the youkai’s kneeling legs. Natsume’s entire body, he notes, is not even the size of the giant’s geta. 

“Hello?” he cups his hands around his mouth to shout his greeting. The youkai’s brows furrow, and he looks away from the window and down at Natsume. After a few seconds, his face smooths over in understanding. His expression is impassive as he speaks, low and booming.

“Natsume Reiko, I have come down from the mountains to request the return of my name and the fulfillment of your promise,”

“I’m Natsume Takashi, Reiko was my grandmother. She’s passed on, but I can return your name,” Natsume says his well-worn script, relieved that this youkai just wants his name, and is not trying to steal the Book of Friends like so many before him. The dangling promise is alarming but not uncommon. He’ll deal with that when they get to it.

“You are not her?” The youkai frowns, leaning down to look closer at Natsume.

“No, I’m a boy,” Natsume sighs, more instinctual than defensive at this point (but maybe still a little bit defensive. He knows youkai have this ‘thing’ about human gender, but he doesn’t think it’s _that_ hard to tell that he isn’t a woman). 

The youkai does not seem impressed, sitting back up straight and looking down his nose at Natsume. His severe brown eyes make Natsume a little nervous in a manner he usually doesn’t have the energy for anymore when it comes to friendly youkai. Beside him, Nyanko-sensei is watching with uncharacteristic studiousness.

“She has passed on already?” the youkai asks.

“Yes. I am told she died very young,” Natsume answers.

The youkai seems placated by this explanation. 

“That is acceptable,” it finally says. Natsume nods and reaches for the Book of Friends, when--

“Takashi-kun? Are you alright?” Touko-san slides open the front door, and pops her head out, worry creasing her face. She looks around him, no doubt trying to figure out why he was shouting. 

“I’m fine! Just thinking,” Natsume rushes out, kicking himself for not considering that she could certainly hear him making noise from inside. Nyanko-sensei snorts.

“Alright,” Touko accepts his words as she always does. “But please come inside. It’s chilly out here.” She shivers in the doorway. “Come warm up. Would you like some tea?”

“I’m fi--” he catches himself in the automatic denial. “Actually, yes, please,” he answers, and Touko gives back a beaming smile. The warmth is back. “I just need to get something from my room, first,” he amplifies his voice, looking up meaningfully at the youkai. It doesn’t seem bothered by the interruption, but neither does it acknowledge the message behind Natsume’s words. As he follows Touko inside and quickly slips out of his shoes, he hopes it is patient enough to wait the few seconds it’ll take him to get back to it.

“I don’t know how Reiko managed to get her hands on that one,” Nyanko-sensei notes as he hops up the staircase alongside Natsume.

“What is he?” Natsume asks.

“A mountain spirit. They are known for staying in isolated meditative states for long periods. I’m surprised this one put the energy into coming down the mountain just to take its name back.”

“Hmmm,” Natsume answers as he takes out the Book of Friends.

When Natsume slides shut the door to his room and opens his window, he gives a relieved breath. The youkai has not moved at all, still staring at the front door. He figures this must be part of its nature. Closer to its face and shoulders, Natsume can see moss and vines practically embedded into the fabric of its plain mauve yukata. An old tree has taken root near its left shoulder blade.

“Hello! Would you like me to return your name now?” He asks through the window. The book, lighter every time, buzzes with energy between Natsume’s palms, responding to the nearby presence of one of its denizens. The youkai turns to him.

“How was your tea?” it asks. Natsume blinks.

“Oh, um, I haven’t had it yet. I didn’t want to keep you waiting for too long.”

The youkai gives a considerate tilt of his head before nodding.

“Please return my name.”

The chime on Natsume’s window rings clear.

“That which would protect me, reveal thy name.” He watches as the pages flip by of their own accord until a single one stands up stock straight. He rips it out, folds it in half, and puts it between his lips while bringing his hands together in a clap.

In a flash of white light, Natsume is transported into the youkai’s memories.

_Everything is quiet and still. Somewhere a bird chirps. It lands on the youkai’s ear. It flies away. The youkai stares straight ahead at a rock formation. Rain runs down his back and drains down the plains of his body. Part of the rock formation crumbles in the downpour. Now it is sunny. The youkai frowns._

_He has not returned today either._

_A fox makes a burrow in a crease of his clothing. Footsteps sound, crunching leaves. Anticipation builds, but when the trees part, it is not Satori. He pushes down his disappointment._

_“Wow, look at you!” the person shouts, one hand on their hip, the other holding a bat against their shoulder._

_The youkai blinks and looks down. No, this is not Satori. This is a human that can see him for what he is, though._

_“Hey! My name’s Natsume Reiko. Whatchya doing?” The human asks._

_“Waiting,” he replies, because though it was not always the case, it is currently the truth._

_“For what?”_

_“A friend,”_

_“Hmm. You wanna play a game to pass the time?”_

_“No”_

_“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun! How about this? If you win, you can eat me. If I win, you give me your name.”_

_He has nothing better to do, and his human reminds him of Satori, with its energetic, upbeat attitude, so he agrees._

_“Okay. Here’s how it goes. You have to solve my riddle: What happens twice in a week, once in a year, and never in a day?”_

_“... That configuration is not possible,”_

_“That’s why it’s a riddle, silly!”_

_“...I don’t know,”_

_“The letter ‘e’!”_

_The youkai considers this for a moment. He supposes the human is right. He gives it his name._

_“This means you have to come to me whenever I call!”_

_The youkai nods. He knows the parameters._

_“So, who’s this friend?” the human asks as it rolls up the parchment with his name._

_“Satori,”_

_“Oh, a satori. How long have you been waiting?”_

_“Not very long,”_

_“Well, if they haven’t come, maybe you should go looking for them!” The youkai considers this. Maybe he will. He says as much, and Natsume Reiko smiles. “Well, when we meet again, I promise to help you look.”_

_She leaves. The mountain is quiet. The trees rustle in the wind. It snows. The youkai wears a bright white hat throughout the season. It melts down the sides of his head. A patch of flowers grow and die on the back of his hand._

_Maybe he should find Natsume Reiko. Satori always comes to him, never the other way around, but Satori always says he likes surprises. For the first time in millennia, he stands up, tearing up the ground that had grown around him._

_Wakatoshi makes his way down the mountain._

Natsume snaps back into the present. 

“Thank you,” Wakatoshi says, and begins to stand. Natsume should stay quiet; he knows he should. Nyanko-sensei sees the look on Natsume’s face, and his hackles rise.

“Don’t you da--”

“Do you still want help finding your friend?” Natsume asks.

“Stop involving yourself with random youkai!” Nyanko-sensei shouts in response. Wakatoshi ignores the not-cat.

“The promise was not yours. You are not obligated to keep it, human,”

“It was my grandmother’s promise. I’ve kind of inherited it. I don’t want to leave her legacy unfinished,” Natsume replies, hand tight around the Book of Friends. Wakatoshi stares at him without saying anything. 

“Takashi, the tea is ready!” Touko-san calls from downstairs.

“Coming!” Natsume calls back. He turns to Wakatoshi. “I’ll be back soon, but don’t go. I want to help you look.” Leaving his window open, Natsume turns away and heads downstairs for his tea.

When Natsume makes his way back up to his room, he is relieved to find that Wakatoshi listened to him, and has not moved from his spot.

“Alright, you may help me search,” Wakatoshi says as if the conversation had not been interrupted. The giant holds out a hand, palm up. Natsume realizes that it would be the most reasonable way of searching, rather than having Wakatoshi wait every step for Natsume to catch up. He hesitates for only a second before jumping out his window, taking a few steps on the roof, and climbing into Wakatoshi’s palm.

“Stupid brat. Just remember the sooner you die, the sooner I get the book, so I guess it’s a good thing you don’t care at all that you can be squished like a bug,” Nyanko-sensei mutters as he joins Natsume. Wakatoshi puts them down on his shoulder, where Natsume can sit relatively secure in the tree that’s grown there.

“Do you think Satori is in the book of friends?” Natsume asks as Wakatoshi begins to walk. He can only call the youkai in the book if he’s seen them before, but maybe if he knows one of the youkai in the pages across from Satori’s, he can ask them.

“No,” Wakatoshi answers, definitive. 

“Okay.”

For the most part, they are quiet as Wakatoshi walks through the forest, the two of them asking the youkai they pass if they’ve seen anyone matching Wakatoshi’s description of Satori--a lively figure with bright red hair and big bright eyes. Every so often, Natsume asks a question in hopes of finding a better angle to concentrate their search.

“How long have you known Satori?” he tries.

“He visited every few days for some weeks. He stopped shortly before I met your grandmother.”

It’s been at least forty years, then. Wakatoshi’s friend could be anywhere by now, but if Natsume has learned anything, it’s that youkai tend to stay around the same places, and rarely is a search one-sided. It is normal enough for him to help youkai who have been separated for that long.

“What did he say last time you saw him? Did you get into a fight, or did he tell you to meet him somewhere?”

“...He said he had to tell me something important, next time he spoke to me. However, it has been longer than between any of his other visits. I am content to wait, but Natsume Reiko thought I should search instead. I miss him, I think,”

“You must be very close,”

“Yes. Satori is special. He is… everything. I think, when I find him, I would like to stay by his side for as long as I am able,”

“Well, maybe you thought something that offended him,” Nyanko-sensei interrupted, lackadaisical. “Satoris can read minds, right? Maybe he read yours and decided he needed some space,”

“Nyanko-sensei!” Natsume admonished. Two animal youkai ran out from under Wakatoshi’s next step, and a breeze whipped the leaves around Natsume’s face as he pinched Nyanko’s cheeks.

A deep melancholy filled Natsume as the horizon turned orange, but Natsume didn’t think it was his own.

“...I hope that is not the case.” Wakatoshi says. Enough time had passed that it takes Natsume a moment to remember what he was talking about.

“I doubt it, but even if it is, I’m sure he’ll still want to see you. We can’t control our thoughts, only our words and actions,”

“Words and actions,” Wakatoshi repeats. “I never told him…” he trails off and never picks the thought back up.

They search through the evening and deep into the night before Natsume asks Wakatoshi to bring him back home, promising to try again tomorrow. Through the night, Wakatoshi sits sedentary outside Natsume’s window, as still and sturdy as the house itself, perhaps even more so. When Natsume leaves for school the next morning, he makes sure Wakatoshi knows he will be back in the afternoon to continue their search. Somehow, he is not surprised to return to a murder of crows sitting in a neat line across one of Wakatoshi’s shoulders. Indignant squawks break apart the peaceful daylight when Wakatoshi moves to lift Natsume back onto his shoulder in their place.

The next few days pass in the same way. No one has seen or even heard of a satori in the area. Wakatoshi does not seem discouraged, but Natsume senses that this mountain spirit would search forever without direction.

“Do you think Hinoe could do a tracking spell?” Natsume asks Nyanko-sensei as he lays out his futon one night.

“Maybe if Wakatoshi has something that belongs to his friend,” Nyanko shrugs, settling in for the night.

The next morning, Natsume asks Wakatoshi, who says he has something that should do the trick.

When Hinoe arrives in the afternoon and draws a spell circle, Wakatoshi passes her a rolled-up blanket.

“One of Satori’s poems,” he explains when asked. “He gifted it to me, but the artistry belongs to him.” Hinoe agrees that this will work, and takes it from him. It was small in his hand, but Hinoe has to cradle it with both arms as she moves to place it in the circle. 

“Stand back,” she warns before beginning a low chant. The circle and the parchment glow in the night, casting long shadows. Energy crackles up from the ground like electricity through Natsume’s limbs. There is only a second’s warning between when Hinoe stops chanting, her eyes growing wide in alarm, and when Natsume feels his body crumple to the ground.

…:::*:::…

It is the second time Natsume finds himself in Wakatoshi’s memories. This time, though, he is both more and less stable, standing on the ground looking up at Wakatoshi instead of seeing the world through the mountain spirit’s perspective.

There is no sense of time, little way of knowing if this is before Wakatoshi met Reiko or after, but there is no tree on his shoulder blade, only a field of flowers.

Somewhere in the woods comes the sound of labored breathing and breaking branches. After a minute, the culprit breaks through the row of trees, though Wakatoshi pays no mind.

It is a young man, around Natsume’s age, wearing traditional clothing covered in dirt, with a cut sluggishly bleeding into one of his eyes. The boy stops in front of the tree line, hands on his knees, and taking deep, gulping breaths. When he looks up, his sightline follows the massive slopes of Wakatoshi’s body before finding his face with a step back and noise of alarm. There’s no doubt that whoever it is, like Natsume, has The Sight.

“Hi, there!” the boy shouts, countenance cheerful as if he hadn’t been running from something that already got a few good hits in. Wakatoshi, staring straight ahead, pays him no mind. “Hello? Can you hear me, mountain-man? No need to be rude!”

Wakatoshi’s brows come together, and he ever so slowly moves his view downward, ripping a shawl of moss that rests around his shoulders and neck.

“I did not intend offense. You are speaking to me?”

“Yup!”

“… You are human,”

“Yup again!”

“I’ve never encountered a human who could see me,”

“Ya… I guess I’m just lucky like that.” It is through kindred experience that Natsume can see the painful isolation in the boy’s eyes. He gets the feeling that what chased the boy here wasn’t so much a ‘what’ as a ‘who.’ Then Natsume is looking--looking at red hair and big eyes--and, a second before the boy speaks again, Natsume understands something with wide-eyed horror. This boy is--“I’m Tendou Satori, by the way. What’s your name?”

This is Satori, and he is human.

Dread floods Natsume’s unanchored mind.

…

“You are bleeding.”

Tendou visits every few weeks. At first, Natsume realizes it is because Wakatoshi’s presence works as well as a shrine in discouraging other youkai from attacking Tendou. Over time, though, Tendou visits even when it seems like nothing is chasing him. 

This is not one of those times.

“Huh? Oh, ya.” Tendou touches a hand to his scraped jaw. “Someone threw a rock at me,” he explains.

“Why?”

“They think I’m cursed, or that I’m some kind of monster or something,”

“But you are human,”

“Not to everyone.” Tendou puts his hand down and wipes the blood off on his clothes. He looks up at Wakatoshi for a few seconds before kicking off his sandals and making a running jump onto the slope of Wakatoshi’s thigh. The ground shakes with Wakatoshi’s startle, but he otherwise stays still, watching Tendou’s progress up onto his lap, and then up the folds of his clothing.

Tendou is undeniably athletic, making jumps and pulling up his weight in a way Natsume certainly can’t. However, there is also something undeniably reckless about the way he climbs, not enough thought going into where his feet should go or whether he really can make a particular jump or not. Regardless, he makes it up to Wakatoshi’s shoulder, where he laughs and kicks his legs against the flowers.

“Nice view!” he says.

Wakatoshi focuses more deliberately on the same cliff face and horizon he’s been looking at for millennia. 

“I suppose it is,” he answers. 

“Hmm… The mighty rocks climb for the sky / thinking themselves outdone. / Reaching for beauty hoarded by / the celestial shine / their search has just begun.”

“...The mountain will never be able to rise to the sky,”

“I know, that’s the point. No matter how much the rocks reach, they’ll never be good enough to be seen like the sun. It’s a poem. What do you think?”

“...It was palatable.”

Tendou laughs, and almost falls backward off Wakatoshi’s shoulder.

“Woah!” he grabs onto the roots of some of the wildflowers, fingers intertwining with the mossy bed. “I guess I’ll have to work harder at them, then!”

…

In the next memory, Tendou breaks into Wakatoshi’s clearing dragging a sapling over his shoulder. The tree is young and thin, but taller than Tendou as he heaves it forward, roots clumped together with loose dirt. His shoulders, Natsume notices, are broader than they were before, his jaw heavier. He is no longer Natsume’s age.

Tendou only stops when he’s at Wakatoshi’s knees.

“Hey, Toshi! Can I have a lift, please? I don’t think I can carry this thing to the top.”

There is a question in Wakatoshi’s eyes, but he does as asked, allowing Tendou to climb onto his hand, and depositing him on the shoulder he usually sits on.

“Is that satisfactory?”

“Yup!” Tendou stands the tree up and begins to clean out the roots. “I’m planting this here, that way I have something solid to hold onto. And maybe in a few years, I’ll be able to climb it and whisper to you,” Tendou explains as he works.

“I see,” Wakatoshi says, though it doesn’t seem like he does. Still, there is something pleased living in the new tilt to his mouth. “Does this mean you will visit often?”

“Is that alright?” Tendou pauses, shaking hands clamped around dirt and wrapped around growing roots.

“Yes. I would… like that.”

Tendou smiles.

…

Over the years, the tree grows. Like Tendou said, it is one day big enough for Tendou to climb and sit snug in its branches, close enough for him and Wakatoshi to speak without shouting.

“I have left my parents’ home,” Tendou says one day, hidden in the springtime bloom.

“Why?”

“I am old enough. And it will be easier for them, without me around. Besides, they keep bothering me about finding a wife,”

“A wife?”

“A human who you live with and spend your life with, romantically,”

“And you do not want that?”

“Not exactly… How about you, Toshi? Don’t you ever want more company up here?”

“No. You are enough. Will you recite another poem for me?”

…

“I’ve made you something,” Tendou says, entering the clearing with cloth slung over his shoulders much the same way the sapling once was. His hair is pulled back on the nape of his neck, the once alarming shade of red having darkened into something more palatable with age. “It’s still not big enough for you, but I wanted you to at least be able to read it.” Tendou gets to work lying the blanket out on the clearing. It is embroidered with a poem in a fashion that must have taken the dull work of months, perhaps years.

Natsume stares at the poem for a while before he realizes why he cannot read it. The characters and language are too old for his modern literacy. The yukata and geta Tendou usually wore had already weighed on Natsume’s mind, but this confirmation is a bullet made of empathy. 

“Satori…” Ushijima runs his thumbs over a few of the characters. Natsume makes out some lines that look like those for ‘light,’ ‘love,’ and something about sunrise and falling.

“It’s the truth. Things can never be the same, not for me,” Tendou answers an unspoken question. “You’ve never hurt me, physically or otherwise. More importantly, though, you never judged me. You haven’t always understood me, but you’ve always accepted me regardless. When I was a child, ideas like peace and stability seemed unreachable, things I would have to search for forever and still never find. Now, I never have to wonder; I always know exactly where I want to be. I want to be by your side for as long as I live,”

“I understand. Please stay by my side, Satori.”

When Tendou climbs up to Wakatoshi’s shoulder, he does so with steadfast care. There are parentheses around Tendou’s smile.

…

To no surprise, Tendou comes to call even more often after that, weeks between visits shortening to near every day. Their lives are intertwined, and they share them near completely as the years pass. Watching those visits, though, Natsume continues to notice the thing Wakatoshi didn’t (or simply couldn’t recognize for what it was).

It starts with Tendou’s hair, few strands having begun to lighten around his temples. Then crows feet imprint themselves at the corners of Tendou’s eyes. They crinkle with his laugh lines when he smiles.

More of his hair lightens, past the vibrant red of his youth and into a nearly just as startling silver. Red and white begin a battle over Tendou’s head, the ultimate victor already long decided.

Each time Tendou makes the trek to Wakatoshi’s perch, catching his breath takes longer and longer. One day, he leans over his knees, gasping for breath, for full minutes. He does the same the next time, and every time after that.

Tendou shows up with a stick he picked up off the trail, and after that, with a real cane. He sits down slow and careful when he talks to Wakatoshi. He no longer climbs the tree to speak into Wakatoshi’s ear.

What does Wakatoshi see, Natsume wonders, when Tendou stumbles into the clearing without a hint of red to be found amongst the colorless white of his head? Perhaps Wakatoshi thinks it’s a molt, a simple passing of the seasons that would eventually cycle back to the beginning, like the white of winter is broken by the colorful, reliable bloom of spring. Natsume wonders if Wakatoshi thinks the same about the deep rattling cough that sprouts from Tendou’s lungs or the thin film of cataracts over one eye. Maybe the liver spots that appear on Tendou’s hands look to Wakatoshi like the markings of an animal reaching adulthood. Perhaps he thinks Tendou has only just reached his prime.

“My love…” Tendou trails off, papery lips pressing together tightly. With soft eyes, Wakatoshi looks down to where Tendou rests on Wakatoshi’s knee. He hums to show he is listening, and cups his palm so Tendou can settle his weight back into it without fear of falling. “I need to--” a small cough breaks his words. It’s not loud by any means, but it shakes Tendou’s shoulders regardless. He looks down at his hands when it subsides, clenching his long fingers and pinching at the loose hanging skin around his knuckles.

Tendou sighs.

“My love, there’s something you must know--that I must tell you. It is upsetting, but not cataclysmic. That is to say, nothing can separate us forever. Do you believe that?”

“I cannot be kept apart from you for long,” Wakatoshi agrees readily.

“I… Next time. I will tell you next time,”

“That is acceptable.”

When Tendou leaves, Wakatoshi watches the horizon as he always has.

Spring burns into summer. The tree on his shoulder sheds its leaves. Snow covers him in place of the embroidered blanket he keeps in his clothing. The snow melts into spring.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Wakatoshi’s chest is cold. He blinks.

Natsume Reiko stumbles into his clearing with clothes, mannerisms, and language that Tendou Satori would never have been able to recognize, despite all their similarities.

…:::*:::…

A gasp cuts through the fresh night air as Natsume sits up straight. The tracking circle has disappeared, and Hinoe and Nyanko-sensei crowd him on either side. 

“That’s not quite how this is supposed to work, but did you figure anything out?” Hinoe asks.

Natsume closes his eyes as he stands.

When he had realized Wakatoshi’s Satori was human, he’d hoped he could still reunite Wakatoshi with an elderly man living somewhere in town. After seeing Wakatoshi’s memories, though, Natsume understands the true scope of Wakatoshi’s misconstruction of the very concept of time. Tendou Satori did not visit Wakatoshi every few days for weeks. He visited every few weeks for years, and then every day until his body could no longer stand the journey. And he did this all hundreds of years before Natsume Reiko ever took Wakatoshi’s name. 

Natsume turns to Wakatoshi, dreading his necessary attempt to explain the truth to him. Will he understand? 

Yes, because large brown eyes stripped of ignorance and weighed down by new knowledge meet Natsume’s. Wakatoshi already knows. Like Natsume saw the memories of Reiko through Wakatoshi’s perspective, Wakatoshi has seen his relationship with Satori through Natsume’s human understanding.

“He is… gone,” Wakatoshi says in a sort of confused wonder. “Satori is gone,” he repeats with an onerous conviction. “I… I didn’t know. I didn’t realize human lives were so… fleeting.” He brings a hand up to cover his eyes, grief pressing down with a weight not even Wakatoshi’s mountain carved shoulders look like they can bare. 

Natsume does and doesn’t understand all at once. He’s lost so many people in his life, yet never lost anyone at all. His memories of his grandmother are second-hand; his memories of his father are distant at best. His memories of his mother are nonexistent. He’s been ripped away from family after family, but to lose someone you cared deeply about to the passage of something you otherwise would never have noticed… That’s what it’s always come down to in Natsume’s life, though, hasn’t it? Time is so precious, so fleeting, and every moment he spends with people he loves is one more moment he never expected to have in the first place.

Wakatoshi expected to have forever, and the truth came three hundred years too late for him to change anything.

“What a fool.” Nyanko-sensei shakes his head. His words are too low for Wakatoshi to hear, but that’s because he didn’t mean them for the giant. Nyanko-sensei is not like Wakatoshi. Nyanko understands the nature of humanity, and still, he decides to stay by a second Natsume’s side. No, the words are not aimed at Wakatoshi at all, not really.

“What do humans do with their dead?”

“Um, cremate and bury them, usually,”

“I see. So he still physical remains on this plane… I would like to find Satori’s resting place,” Wakatoshi says, voice steady and firm.

“That might not be possible anymore,” Natsume warns. Wakatoshi nods once in acknowledgment, but does not rescind his statement. Natsume sighs.

“I’ll ask around for a Tendou family.”

…:::*:::…

It takes months.

The entire time, Wakatoshi waits without a word. Natsume returns other names, completes tasks for other youkai, and prays neither Natori nor Matoba will show up unannounced. The entire time Wakatoshi sits against the Fujiwara’s house and does not move a breath.

“I found it,” Natsume tells him one day.

“Thank you,” Wakatoshi says, his first words since he set the task. His grief is as visibly heavy as it was then. For him, no time has passed at all.

Does the unchanging state of a mountain make every emotion indefinite? Time is said to heal all wounds, but what happens to wounds set in beings untouched by its steady crawl? What heals them? A melancholy that does not truly belong to Natsume settles once more in his chest.

The ashes of the Tendou family are buried in an abandoned cemetery outside of town. The grave markers have long been ambushed and overtaken by weather and moss. The precariously stacked rocks covered in plantlife remind Natsume of Wakatoshi’s body. There is a rock pile slightly fatter than the others at the very back corner of the lot. The name once carved into it is mostly worn away, with only a few lines to give the impression of the character for ‘tori.’

“As far as the people around him knew, he never married. He never had children, either, but one of his cousins did. The family name lived on for a generation or two after he died. I found a woman whose grandmother carried it, and her family history led me back here.” Natsume explains as Wakatoshi settles back on his knees, studying the gravemarker. Taki found the woman, actually, and Tanuma did some digging in some old records his father inherited with the temple.

Wakatoshi stares at the marker, and slowly begins to speak.

“I never told Satori that I loved him. I never gave him the breadth of affection he freely gave to me. He was the light of my life, lighting it up for only an instant, but everything that comes after can never look the same. But I never told him that, never had the correct words. He always had words, and I did not want to present him with any less than all he had given me. I had thought I could tell him once I found them. I did not realize there was any reason to hurry.” Wakatoshi frowns. “You say he never made a human family?”

“No. Everyone thought he lived and died alone,”

“He waited for me. How wasteful it must be for humans to wait when they have such short lifespans. Yet he did it, and I never delivered,”

“I think he knew. That you loved him, I mean. I know sometimes it’s tough to say things like that, but if you act like they’re true, I think the people around you come to understand. I don’t think he spent his life waiting for you. I think he knew he already had you,”

“Is this something humans can know?”

“Not exactly, but...” Natsume moves to the back of the stones. There is a reason these rocks are broader. Carved into the back, etched much deeper than anyone would reasonably do so unless by special request, are a few lines. “He left you a note,” Natsume says. Wakatoshi blinks. His hand rises to cover his heart, where Tendou’s blanket is.

“Please read it to me.” Natsume does.

“I cannot be a true monster,  
for to have known true love  
as solid and unwavering  
as the mountains are strong  
is to know what no monster could:  
Eternal fulfillment.

I eagerly await our reunion, my love, on the day the world itself turns to ash.”

The forest is silent, broken by the twittering of birds and movement of small animals.

“Eagerly await,” Wakatoshi repeats. The tip of his finger comes to rest on top of the grave marker, gentle enough not to disturb the rocks. The air blurs, and Natsume thinks perspective is playing tricks on him until he realizes that the fingertip has become a hand.

Wakatoshi is still big, looming over Natsume in both height and bulk, but he is more plausibly human-sized, now, his traditional garb giving him away as a youkai more than his size does. The blanket drapes over his shoulders like a cloak. 

“Thank you for your assistance, Natsume Takashi. I have decided to return Satori’s commitment to me. I will guard his resting place instead of my mountain for a little while. In giving up that guardianship, I think I am now the right size to hold Satori.” The moss makes a cradle for Wakatoshi as he sits beside the grave marker, head pillowed by one of the rocks he leans against. For the first time, Natsume is looking down to meet the youkai’s eyes. 

Gathering his experiences with this mountain youkai, Natsume knows that he could return to this spot as an old man himself, and Wakatoshi’s ‘little while’ will not have come close to passing. He will be here, as Tendou’s last message foretells, until he has turned to ash. An autumn breeze ruffles their hair and disturbs the leaves around the graveyard.

“I wish you well, Wakatoshi-san.”

Wakatoshi nods in acknowledgment. Natsume turns and begins to walk back down the path. Leaves flutter into the folds of his clothes, and he wavers. Natsume saw without a doubt that Tendou had loved Wakatoshi. Would he want him to waste away there?

“Don’t worry so much,” Nyanko-Sensei admonishes. “He’ll be there for a few millennia, sure, but that’s nothing to him. He might just blink and miss it. It’s like waiting at a long line for a festival booth. It gets a bit annoying, but in the end, you get some delicious fried squid, and you don’t remember the wait anymore! Natsume, buy me some squid! Squid!” Nyanko-sensei goes running off into town, shouting about getting to his favorite restaurant before they close.

Without much thought, Natsume’s steps speed up until he too is running. Maybe he’ll pick something up for the Fujiwaras, and arriving before closing time suddenly feels like urgent business. Time, after all, is such a funny thing.

**Author's Note:**

> How did this turn out so long?  
> Who is this fic for?  
> I mean, me, obviously. But hello other Natsume _and_ Haikyuu!! fans (I guess? Is that who you are?). Thanks for stopping by!


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